Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Grace Episcopal School GatorBots had a Demonstration Day and end of the year party on April 13. This was done in conjuction with National Robotics Week.

I took my Parallax Stingray Robot and let it "roam" around. The kids were very impressed. The loved the size, which looked huge compared to their Scribblers. I am starting to make some head way on this great robot. A picture from the Demostration Day is posted above. The current version has 5 - Ping))) ultra-sonic sensors and a Parallax 4 x 20 LCD display.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Saturday, April 3, 2010

I picked up one of Brian's (http://ucontroller.com/index.html) Dual Voltage Power Supply Kits to use with my Propeller Education Kit. It supplies 5 volts and 3.3 volts to a breadboard and uses a Parallax standard 2.1 mm center positive connection to a 7-9 volt wall wart. I includes and on/off switch and an LED to indicate when it is on. There are alterative pin locations to adapt to breadboard variations.

The PCB boards are very nice and screened clearly. The documentation is simple and clear and it is a cinch to put together. I don't know if I got lucky, but mine is dead on. The 5 volt side provide 5.000 volts and the 3.3 volt side provided 3.305 volts on my meter. Can't beat that.

It is a nice little kit and sure beats using batteries! My son even helped me put it together and learned about the parts, how to place them and got to watch some soldering.

Update: I added some heat sinks that I found in my junkbox to the voltage regulators. (This is not shown in the photo)